


the fearful passage of death-mark'd love

by flibbertygigget



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (but like you can see where they're coming from), Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst, Discrimination, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Platonic Life Partners, Sherlock Holmes is down to murder people for you, even if that does mean he gets tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 00:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10205066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: The first time that John meets Sherlock Holmes, the younger man has his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, wrists bare of any hint of ink. Within 48 hours, John has added "Jefferson Hope" to his clavicle.(Or: The One Where, When You Kill Someone, Their Name Shows Up On Your Arm)





	

John's arms are drenched in ink. It curls around his wrists and biceps, dancing over his shoulder until it nearly kisses his collarbone. The names are in strange languages, squiggles and dots that he had to teach himself to say using Google Translate. He carries an identification card everywhere, telling the world that, despite what his arms say, he is not a killer. That doesn't stop some of them from calling the police, or the police from looking at him like he might snap at any moment and add another name to his collection.

The first time that John meets Sherlock Holmes, the younger man has his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, wrists bare of any hint of ink. Within 48 hours, John has added "Jefferson Hope" to his clavicle. He makes sure that his shirt is buttoned up all the way, but Mycroft still looks at him with a kind of cool wariness that makes it clear his efforts have been in vain. Then again, it could just be that Mycroft deduced it, like Sherlock.

Sherlock somehow manages to get them into Jefferson Hope's autopsy. John tries not to show how bitter he feels when the cabbie has no ink at all.

So far as anyone can tell, there are two things needed for the death-marks to show. First, you must intend to kill. Second, it must be by your own hand. None of the people that John failed to save in that desert are on his arms, since he was trying to save them. None of the people Jefferson Hope killed are on his wrists, since he got his victims to take the poison themselves. John remembers learning, in high school history, about how the gallows and scaffold were invented to keep the executioner from bearing the shame of the death-marks.

Soldiers, of course, were given no such consideration.

It is grimly funny, in a way, when the police find out what they've been working with. Well, the circumstances are humorous, at least. Donovan has cornered John again and is busy telling him all the ways in which Sherlock will inevitably snap, and he's busy trying not to show her how much the entire conversation annoys him.

"I've seen his wrists, you know," John says, voice only slightly snappish. It feels like an accomplishment. "He hasn't killed anyone."

"Oh, there are ways to get around that," Donovan says. "He's definitely clever enough to avoid them. Probably gives the freak some kind of sick thrill, running circles around us, making sure that no one can pin anything on him." John turns to walk away. "Hey, where are you going?" She reaches out to grab his wrist, and the cuff of his shirt rides up to expose his wrist. Donovan pulls away as though burnt, and when John turns back to her she's looking at him like he's grown two heads.

"So," John says, biting his bottom lip and putting his hands awkwardly in his pockets.

"You - You're -"

"Yeah?"

"You're a _monster_." John lets out a long breath and starts to reach for his wallet. "Oh my God, I _trusted_ you. I fucking tried to protect you from the freak, and you were a-"

"Oh, what was John, Donovan?" says Sherlock, swooping in like some kind of comic book character in his bloody long coat. John doesn't know whether to be relieved or embarrassed by the interruption.

"Look, Donovan, I have a card," he says, fumbling with his wallet. "I can show it to you right now."

"You were a killer all along." Sherlock's eyes narrow, but John doesn't flinch at the pure disgust in her tone.

"Yeah," he says. "But I have a card, everything's in order-"

"Let me see it then."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock says, almost snaps. Both Donovan and John look at him in surprise. "You can easily see that John is military from the moment he walks in a room. You hardly need anything as pedestrian as an identification card to prove _that_."

"He's was a _doctor_ ," Donovan says.

"I had bad days," John says mildly, and if he had thought that she couldn't look any more disgusted by him he had been wrong.

"You're a complete monster, you know that, right?" she spits, barely glancing at the card he hands her. Sherlock looks like he's about to say something that will get him arrested, so John shrugs.

"I'm aware," he says dryly. Donovan practically throws the card back at him, like if she holds it for too long she'll be infected by it.

"Monster," she snarls again before skulking away, no doubt to spread the word of John's ink. The whole damn Yard will know by the end of the day, no doubt. John sighs, tucking the card back into his wallet and putting the whole lot in his back pocket.

"Well, that could have gone better," he says. He looks over at Sherlock, who is glaring off into space as though it had been particularly stupid. "Hey, earth to Sherlock-"

"Is she a hypocrite in addition to being an imbecile?" Sherlock says, seeming slightly stunned. John shrugs again. "As though there aren't countless police with death-marks on their wrists, as though her boss doesn't have them half-way up his arm-"

"Yeah, well, they're police," John says. "There's a difference between that and - well, and this." Sherlock turns his glare to him.

"What kind of difference does it make?" he says. "You've both got the cards." John almost laughs at that.

"The police protect the citizens. Monsters just go off to some desert and shoot people." He walks away before Sherlock can say anything more.

Nothing changes between him and Sherlock after that, strangely enough. Sherlock seems a bit more contemplative, more prone to looking at his death-marks on those rare occasions when John lets his wrists show, but over all Sherlock's been being... good about it. Far better than John had ever expected.

"You know, you can ask me about them if you'd like," John says one evening, when he's had a few beers and caught Sherlock looking again. Sherlock jumps. "I can show them to you, I don't mind."

"I thought that you would consider that... not good?" he says uncertainly, though John can tell that he's dying to see them.

"With most people it would be," John admits, "but you're not really like other people." Sherlock looks at him for a moment, eyes narrowing, and then he nods.

"Take off your shirt," he says, making it sound like an order. John can't help a slightly immature laugh as he unbuttons his shirt and folds it over the back of his chair. He turns back to Sherlock, ready to make some quip about the situation, but the sheer intensity of Sherlock's gaze makes the words die on his lips.

Sherlock looks _fascinated_. He steps closer to John, and John tries not to shiver as cool blue eyes rove slowly over his arms, studying him like a graph or a crime scene. Sherlock reaches out, not even hesitating as he touches a finger to the "Jefferson Hope" on John's collarbone. Sherlock's lips thin, and then both his hand and his gaze drop away, as though John and his ink are no longer worthy of his attention. John doesn't know how to feel about that, whether to be relieved or disappointed. Perhaps he's a little bit of both.

"Are you going to insist on dinner?" Sherlock says, flopping down on the sofa and retrieving his violin from behind it.

"Of course," John says. His voice is trembling, a bit. Sherlock ignores it, plucking at the violin. "Chinese or Indian?" Sherlock rolls his eyes and snorts. "All right, Chinese then."

"I'd rather have Indian." John nods as he rebuttons his shirt.

They don't speak of the death-marks again for a long time. John doesn't know what to make of it, to be honest. Sherlock seems to have absolutely none of the disgust or fear that should be there, should be natural, yet John _knows_ that Sherlock cares. Otherwise he wouldn't be doing this, wouldn't be trying to capture killers and solve crimes like some kind of detective novel. But at the same time, since he _did_ care, he shouldn't have been so all right with John being death-marked.

It's better that they don't talk about it.

The only time before the fake suicide (and, yes, John is still upset about it, he's seen friends die in front of him before and it _never_ gets easier) that they really talk about it is after the pool, with the phantom smell of gunpowder and almonds in John's nostrils as he half-collapses on the floor.

Sherlock still has John's gun in his hands, and John can't help but stare at it. Sherlock had pointed it at Moriarty, Sherlock had been willing to kill Moriarty, Sherlock would have gotten a death-mark.

"You can't do that again," John says when he catches his breath. Sherlock blinks at him, still looking half-wild.

"Do what?" he says.

"Do that - that thing. That thing where you're about to kill someone." John leaves the 'for me' off the end of it. There are some things better left unsaid.

"Mycroft would have gotten me a card," Sherlock says airily, carelessly. John stares at him. "There was no need to worry."

"Sherlock..." John stares at the tile floor. "You can't just do that, not for me. It's not worth it." Sherlock's eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth as though to say something, but then Moriarty is back and they're about to die and then everything is over, suddenly, and John can finally breath again. Whatever Sherlock was going to say is lost in the chaos.

John doesn't think for a moment that Sherlock is a fraud. How else would he have been able to deduce that the killer was Jefferson Hope when he had had no death-marks to speak of? How else would he have been able to see that John was military without asking for his card? No, Sherlock had been real, and, more than that, he wasn't dead.

There is no "Sherlock Holmes" on John's arms or back or chest.

When Sherlock comes back, John makes him tea. He doesn't mention how Sherlock's sleeves, usually rolled up to mid-forearm or elbow, are covering his wrists now. He gets it. He does. But then Sherlock decides to bring it up, and John can't avoid the conversation.

"I've killed people," Sherlock says softly, uncertainly.

"I'd figured." John tries to go to his chair, but Sherlock catches him by the wrist. John raises an eyebrow, and Sherlock rolls up his right sleeve. He points to one of the names, "Sebastian Moran."

"He was going to kill you," Sherlock says, practically begging John to understand what he'd done. "He was the sniper who - If I hadn't jumped, if I hadn't killed him."

"Sherlock, I get it," John says. "I'd be a hypocrite not to." Sherlock's wariness doesn't go away.

"That's different. You did it because you had to. I - I hunted them down like animals. I shot Moran in his sleep."

"It's okay." Sherlock doesn't look convinced, but that's all right. John feels a bit of remorse, of course, a sorrow that Sherlock will have to learn to deal with all the problems that having the death-marks creates. He wouldn't wish that on anyone. But as for John's reaction... "You did what you had to.

Sherlock nods and finally relaxes, taking a sip of the tea before glaring at it in disgust.

"It's _cold_ ," he says, as though the tea was in some kind of conspiracy against him.

"Yeah, that tends to happen when you leave it sitting too long," John says. He sits back in his chair and grins. They aren't fine, not by a long shot, but they'll get there. He'd bet on it.


End file.
